Ryan Fitzpatrick Approaches Record of Fellow Ivy League Alumnus

Ryan Fitzpatrick of Harvard and the Jets has thrown 134 touchdown passes in the N.F.L., three short of the record of Columbia’s Sid Luckman for most by an alumnus a graduate of an Ivy League college.Credit
Steven Senne/Associated Press

The golden era for Ivy League football, at least in terms of producing quarterbacks, was probably the early 1980s. Five quarterbacks found their way into the N.F.L. A few of them even stuck.

There was Jeff Kemp, who emerged from Dartmouth to lead the Los Angeles Rams into the 1984 playoffs. There was Princeton’s Bob Holly, a dashing backup to Joe Theismann in Super Bowl XVII. There was Jim Crocicchia, who got a call from the Giants after graduating from Penn in 1987. The players were on strike; the Giants needed a quarterback. He made his debut on “Monday Night Football,” completed six passes for 89 yards, and never played in the N.F.L. again.